GENERAL
QUESTIONS
These are a few points recently raised by
PET preform & bottle manufacturers:
Current thinking by this industry, as noted
below, is that making PET containers biodegradable has several
negatives:
Q: It makes a perfectly recyclable
material unusable, wasting valuable resources.
– This is true for biopolymers (e.g.
PLA – corn starch bottles ) but not for Reverte™ PET
bottles which are recyclable in the normal manner.
Q: It contaminates the recycling
stream and is difficult or impossible to sort.
– Yes for biopolymers but not Reverte™ PET
bottles.
Q: It doesn't reduce waste to landfills.
- Reverte™ PET bottles will indeed
help greatly in reducing the amount of waste going into landfills
by firstly breaking them down, and then promoting their biodegradation.
It also allows the carbon not to be lost but returned to
the carbon sink.
Q: Most PET bottles don't decompose
in the ocean, so it doesn't solve the marine waste problem.
- Reverte™ PET bottles will oxo-biodegrade
if they find their way into the ocean since in this environment
there is usually plenty of oxygen, UV light and heat which
are required for the oxo-biodegradation process.
Q: Most additives are not truly
biodegradable, but allow the plastic to break up into little
bits so it disappears from view but is still present in the
environment.
- This is often quoted by people who either
don’t fully understand the technology, or more likely
prefer to make disparaging remarks about it. Reverte™ does
indeed firstly break down the PET into fragments but then
these fragments are bio-digested until all that ultimately
remains is CO2 and water.
Q: Most of these additives require
either sunlight or oxygen, both of which don't exist in landfills.
- Reverte does indeed require a small amount
of UV light to initiate the process, and then both oxygen
and temperatures above 0 º C during the first stage
(oxidation) of the process. There is normally sufficient
amounts of both of these available, certainly in the upper
levels of landfills.
Q: There is no infrastructure for
composting.
- There are few industrial composting facilities
available in most countries. This fact therefore makes Reverte™ products
even more helpful since we do not recommend composting plastic
products incorporating Reverte™. They do not need composting
facilities in order to breakdown and ultimately biodegrade.
A typical landfill will do.
Q: Some studies have shown that
making packaging biodegradable actually encourages littering.
- We are not aware of any such studies
but there will always be people who will deliberately or
accidentally discard their plastic waste. What will happen
to all the plastic waste that will not be recycled or nor
incinerated, and instead will litter the countryside – Reverte™ is
intended to address these PET bottles. Would it not be better
if the discarded plastic were all oxo-biodegradable?
Q: IN the USA, the Oregon and California
Departments of Conservation have issued statements NOT recommending
bio-based substitutes for PET in beverage containers for
many of the same reasons listed above. NAPCOR and the
APR also consider biodegradable and bio-based materials in
containers to be contaminants.
- We agree about bio-based substitutes – being
PLA – the bottles derived from corn & other starches;
and therefore recommend PET incorporating Reverte™ for
all beverage containers.
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